[ closed post: rabbit meditation power hour ]

[lightbearinglord]

The rabbits have been settling in. They have sweet, easygoing temperaments, which helps, and it helps, too, that the mansion has apparently noticed their presence and supplied Lan Wangji with a little wooden hutch for their keeping when he is not able to hold them. He does, on occasion, need his hands for other tasks. His preferred kitchen has also been forthcoming with hay and vegetables for their feeding. Wei Ying has already threatened to cook and eat them several times, which means he likes them and will be whittling toys for them any day now. Once winter passes, Lan Wangji will work on constructing a sturdier hutch for the outdoors as well, so that they can see the lake and the woods.¹

Because they are so sweet, and also so endearingly small, their presence is calming in itself. Lan Wangji does not exactly need help to meditate successfully -- he has been doing it daily since he was very young -- but the company does not go amiss, either. It is difficult to dwell overmuch on anything troublesome with two tiny, warm bodies in one's lap.

Lan Wangji is not actually meditating yet, but he is seated in that side room he prefers to use for the practice. There is incense burning, and he has a little brown rabbit, munching its way through a piece of watercress, perched on his knee. In his hands, he holds the equally little white rabbit, which is overall doing well, but which does have a greater tendency to startle and to want to hide itself. He is speaking to it under his breath, gently.

¹It's important for rabbits who began life in the bottom of a top hat to be exposed to nature.

Comments

[wickedwit]

It's impossibly dear. Perhaps this is the feeling of brotherhood that Claudius never had, a man who's protected him and cared for him and who can teach him that rabbits purr. Little Claudius, who Lan Wangji led to the kitchen one afternoon, would have loved this. So does Claudius grown. "So soft a sound. Thou must quiet thyself to hear it -- no wonder thou shouldst be such a friend to rabbits," he teases. After all, Lan Wangji has little trouble being quiet.

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji accepts this teasing without a word or even a glance of protest. He does excel at silence. "Rabbits also leap into the air when they are happy. When they feel safe, they will sleep on their sides or backs, with their bellies exposed." Here, there's the tiniest crinkling at the corners of his eyes, just a hint of a smile, which means, But this one is my favorite.

[wickedwit]

Claudius can read those signs so easily now, and he'd swear to anyone that from Lan Wangji that crinkling of the eyes is the broadest, happiest beam. "Some day," Claudius murmurs after a moment, soft, "thou wilt show me the Cloud Recesses, and the hills behind them. Whatever's written, I can think nothing but the worlds we left behind are real and true as any world above them. There will always be something to discover beyond the remit of a story -- no story can include all things, linger on every bamboo-stalk and gentian and afternoon spent watching rabbits leap. There are secret joys that only thou know'st, no matter what men who read thy book believe they know." It's for those things Lan Wangji has become so dear to Claudius, the secret sides of him that few people see. And surely, he thinks, no one who read either of their books could have predicted that.

[lightbearinglord]

Whatever is written, indeed. If Claudius is a villain in his story, if Wei Ying is a villain in his, then so be it. Lan Wangji has seen how gently Claudius holds a rabbit, how tenderly he loves Galahad, and how kindly and carefully he has accepted every painful secret that Lan Wangji has given him, voluntary or not. If Claudius fears a return to his own world, then Lan Wangji's will be open to him, from the back hills of the Cloud Recesses to the bustling markets of Gusu and Caiyi. Once, he thought himself cold and inhospitable, and that any impulse he had to shelter the people he loved was something to fear. Now, he finds that he wants to open himself and his home to them. Wei Ying is no longer welcome at Lotus Pier. Valhalla is not safe for Magnus. Claudius never wants to return to Elsinore. The Cloud Recesses can hold them all and keep them safe.

He looks steadily at Claudius and, after a moment, says, just as soft but with that characteristic steeliness of his, "I will."